Thursday, June 26, 2008

Once there was a blankie

The blankie started out like any other, a quilt made for an expected baby girl. That baby girl was my sister in law. She used it but it was never a particular favorite. Then that baby girl got the shock of her life, a baby brother. She was so appalled by the proceeding that when her daddy took her to pick out a present for the new baby she insisted upon buying him a dress, which he wore, occasionally, on laundry days.After a while she became accustomed to the little havoc-wreaker, and somehow he came into possession of the blankie. He was much more grateful for it than he had been for the dress. In fact, I think he would count it as one of the top ten best gifts he's ever been given. He loved it like every blankie dreams of being loved. He wore it around the house as a loin cloth when no one else was home. He wrapped it around his fist as he fell asleep every night and, eventually he grew up.Soon, he had a Baby Girl of his own. She got loads and piles of blankies as gifts when she was born and she used them for the first eight or nine months of her life. Then something awful happened. It got dead stinking hot outside. The Baby Girl's house was air conditioned, but the summer nights were still rather warm to be spent snuggled under a thick fluffy blankie and every load and pile of the loads and piles of blankies she'd received were thick and fluffy.Fortunately her pop had just the thing. Out came that beloved old rag (it really had seen better days) and for the Baby Girl it was love at first snuggle.She had a little stuffed duckie that she had been rather fond of but the duck was chucked and the blankie reigned supreme.The Pop and the Mama were a little concerned over their lovely daughter choosing for her love a quilt who's quilting was already unquilted in areas and who had patches so thread bare the holey state of it's batting could clearly be seen. Would the blankie last through the child's attachment to it? They worried.Three years later the blankie looked like this. The answer was no, the blankie hadn't out lasted the Baby Girl's attachment.She loved is as much , or possibly more, than ever.She especially liked to pinch it's fraying binding. Often she would hand a corner to one of her parent's and offer to let them have a pinch. She was a generous little mite.Finally, it came to a point when the majority of the binding was hanging off, getting stuck on things and posing a strangulation hazard. Chunks of batting could be found strewn about the house where they fell as the Baby Girl drug the old, white (it had been yellow at the beginning) blankie behind her. Something had to be done, and the mama did it.She cut an elephant out of a corner of the blankie where the original quilting remained. Then she pieced together enough of the other still-quilted portions to use as batting for the front of a pillow sham. The elephant with a tail of blankie binding for the Baby Girl's pinching pleasure, along with a few peanuts, for the elephant's nibbling pleasure, adorned the sham. And the girl liked it! She gave it a snuggle.She pinched the tail.And that night she curled up with it and went right to sleep.

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About Me

My Name is Eva.
Not Ev as in "Evening" but Ev as in "evolution".
Here's your chance to observe my personal evolution, or lack of it, as I document my works, both flesh and fabric.
I sew with a passion. Have done since I was a girl, and, more recently, rear a quartet of awe-inspiring children.
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